Dominating Hollywood: Starting with Scarlett

Chapter 249 Super Power Universe
After handling the company's basic affairs, Tang De came to the screenwriter department.

As soon as I opened the door of the conference room, I heard several screenwriters inside discussing the writing of the plot of "Lucy".

"I think Lucy has to grow up a little bit, and you can't take that away from her."

"But you have to take into account the audience's audio-visual experience. Adding so many scenes will make it look very lengthy!"

"But if we don't add it, Lucy won't be truly omnipresent. This is just a small concession we make for the artistry of the film!"

"A little concession? I think the box office is more important!"

"Box office, the only thing you care about is box office, right? You are so superficial!"

"FXXKYOU! Who are you calling superficial?"

The two were arguing fiercely when Tang De walked in. The screenwriter next to him immediately said, "Here comes Tang!"

Hearing these words, the two people who were arguing suddenly stopped and looked at Tang De at the same time.

Tang De walked into the meeting room and looked at the two parties arguing.

One of them was a bald, muscular man who looked nothing like a screenwriter. Instead, he looked very much like the thugs in the movies.

One of them was a man with a belly full of fat. He was also a screenwriter who insisted on the artistry of movies. Because he could not beat the muscular man opposite him, he could only tilt his neck, red face and shout at the top of his lungs to refute.

"Drizzt, Viktor, what happened?"

The former is the name of the bald strong man, and the latter is the name of the fat man.

Tang De sat in the main seat and looked at the script in front of them.

"Tang, this is what I think. I think Lucy's character growth must be included in these plots..." Seeing that he had a backbone, Victor immediately handed the script to Tang De.

The plot of the movie "Lucy" tells a science fiction story.

Lucy, an American citizen, originally lived in Taipei City and was just an ordinary person.

However, because of her boyfriend's deception, she became a "drug mule" transporting drugs.

One day, her boyfriend gave Lucy a box containing the expensive new drug CPH4 and asked her to help him deliver it to Mr. Zhang, the mastermind behind the drug delivery.

As a result, as soon as Lucy entered the hotel, she witnessed her boyfriend being killed, and she was forcibly brought to Mr. Zhang.

Mr. Zhang did not kill her, but simply sewed CPH4 into Lucy's stomach and asked her to transport the drugs to Europe with three other drug mules.

However, during the process, Lucy was kicked in the stomach, causing the drugs to rupture in her body and seep into her blood vessels and nerves.

But instead of dying, she gained various super powers and became a true superman.

She wanted to kill Mr. Zhang, but failed and only killed his men.

However, in the process of using her super powers, she found that her body was rapidly deteriorating. She had to find Professor Norman, the only one who could save her. From him, she learned that the only way to save her life now was to take more CPH4.

So Lucy found another policeman to cooperate with her, collected all the CPH4 and took it.

But when she took all the CPH4, her body turned into black matter. At the same time, in her mind she traveled through time and space back to the past and talked with the oldest ancestor of mankind.

It was at this time that Mr. Zhang came over and wanted to kill Lucy.

As a result, his bullets missed, because Lucy's body disappeared and turned into an invisible and shapeless next-generation supercomputer.

She is omnipresent and omniscient.

Mr. Zhang was finally killed by others, and Lucy turned herself into a USB drive and handed it over to Professor Norman.

This is the general plot of "Lucy".

It seems like there are many elements, including superpowers, gangster crimes, fighting, gun battles, and philosophy.

But Tang De believes that the shortcomings of this film are also obvious.

An invincible biological computer that eventually became omniscient and omnipotent was in constant dispute with a gang boss.

It really seems a bit low-class and looks a bit low.

Of course, this should be the director's fault. After all, the original movie was shot by Luc Besson, and he paid tribute to quite a few scenes in the movie, including his own classic work "Léon: The Professional".

It is well known that he likes to shoot gangster movies, but Tang De feels that the scale of "Lucy" can be even bigger!

It could even become the pioneering work in a new IP series.

So he made the following changes.

First of all, the location of the events in Lucy has changed from Taipei to Seoul, South Korea. The reason why the previous movie was set in Taipei was because it was influenced by the Chinese producers.

It’s just that this movie is not suitable for promotion in mainland China, so Shanghai BJ was not chosen.

However, since Tang Delai was the director and investor this time, he naturally did not need to be restrained. He directly positioned the villain in Seoul and changed Mr. Zhang into a super drug trafficking organization spanning multiple countries, with many people with super powers under his command.

That’s right, since Lucy can become a super-powered person with the help of drugs, why can’t others become super-powered people through other means?

This is not reasonable.

Only in a world where people with super powers exist can a lucky person like Lucy be born.

So Tang De directly changed the background and changed it into a super power universe.

This way, Lucy will look good when she competes with other people. Otherwise, watching an invincible person slaughtering ordinary people is fun, but the visual effect is not stimulating enough.

Of course, Lucy is far stronger than other super-powered people. She is equivalent to Captain Marvel in the Marvel Universe.

In her eyes, ordinary people with super powers are just a bunch of trash.

Secondly, Tang De gave the position of the big villain to Mr. Zhang, and set up some minor villains. For example, the hotel where Lucy went to deliver drugs at the beginning became the location of the minor villain.

On the one hand, this can highlight Mr. Zhang's status. Otherwise, he would have to transport the drugs himself, which is a bit low-class.

On the other hand, after Lucy gains superpowers, she can directly kill the minor villain, providing the audience with a sense of satisfaction, and then lead to the final villain, Mr. Zhang.

To this end, Tang De also asked the screenwriters to create a complete super-power worldview for him to enrich the details.

For example, why can Mr. Zhang's drug trafficking organization be so rampant? For example, in this world view, large enterprises and large conglomerates are the center of the world, and countries are just associations that have lost their original authority.

That’s right, he directly borrowed part of the cyberpunk worldview to build his own super-powered universe.

Even various prosthetics in the cyber world are included in his arrangement, intending to give the audience some different kinds of stimulation on the screen.

In addition to these, Tang De also modified the rhythm and length of the plot. The original movie was only one and a half hours, but now it has been changed to two hours.

Although it's longer, the plot has quickened its pace a lot. Some clips in the original plot were really long and boring, focusing on many places that shouldn't be described.

Tang De changed all of them this time in order to make the movie look seamless and grab the audience's attention.

Although he has made his requirements clear, there are still screenwriters who think that the film should be more artistic and philosophical.

Tang De looked at his script, raised his eyebrows and asked, "Why should Lucy continue to suffer after gaining super powers?"

Victor wrote several scenes in which Lucy was deceived and toyed with by others. To be honest, I felt angry just reading the words.

"Because it is inevitable. Super powers cannot solve everything. This is the only way for Lucy to grow. Only when she has suffered enough can she realize the complexity of the world." Victor said seriously, thinking that his creative genius was extraordinary.

Think about it, a person with super powers suffers setbacks one after another after gaining the power. He thought that his super powers could solve everything, but in the end it only made things worse. How thoughtful and logical this plot is.

Victor felt that Donald, who had filmed "No Country for Old Men", would definitely agree with his ideas.

He looked at Tang De expectantly, but all he got was silence.

Tang De then said, "Let's go home today. Abby, go back and refine the background of the world."

"Yes."

"Nasu, finish writing the character backgrounds today. I want to read them before I leave work."

"clear."

"Drizzt, finish revising the first two acts of the script today."

"Ok."

"Okay, let's all disperse."

After Tang De said this, Victor was a little confused: "What about me, Tang."

Tang De smiled at him and patted his shoulder: "Please stop what you are doing for a moment. I think your idea is very good, so..."

Half an hour later, Victor stood on the roadside holding his cardboard box, his face full of resentment.

"F**K! He doesn't understand art! He's a tyrant! SHXT! He must have paid for those Oscars!"

He had received a personnel notice of dismissal. Although the compensation was not reduced in full, the shame of being kicked out made Victor's face turn purple.

After all, he is one of the famous screenwriters in Hollywood, how could he tolerate such humiliation?

He immediately decided to write an article to severely criticize Tang De.

At the same time, Tang De was explaining Victor's matter to You Fei.

"In the future, we should use less screenwriters for this kind of art film. They are too stubborn."

"Understood, boss." Yufei adjusted the frame of her glasses.

"Well, I went to the digital realm this afternoon."

Digital Domain became a huge hit after Inception and regained its foothold in Hollywood. In addition, Tang De spent a lot of money to recruit several technical giants, and their facial capture, motion capture and 3D scene special effects have become more and more sophisticated.

Coupled with their original specialty, particle special effects, it is exactly in line with the needs of "Lucy".

So Tang De handed "Lucy" over to Digital Domain and asked them to put a lot of effort into modeling.

"But you still have a meeting with the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Charity Ball in New York this afternoon." Yufei reminded him competently.

"Oh, yes." Tang De was now completely focused on "Lucy" and forgot about this matter for a moment.

"Then let's meet first."

The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Charity Ball, you can tell what it is from the name, and Tang De has participated in it before.

But this time it was different. This time, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York specifically found Tang De and wanted him to serve as this year's annual chairman and be responsible for the design theme of this year's charity ball.

Tang De agreed. This was also a way to increase his reputation, especially in the fashion circle. Being the annual chairman represented a recognition and was a good title.

So after meeting the person in charge, the two quickly decided on this year's annual theme, American Women: A New Side.

Feminism is very popular now, marches and demonstrations have been recognized by all sectors of society, and many people who promote women's rights have also gained a lot of benefits.

Even Carmela, a writer who writes novels specifically for women, was invited to various talk shows to promote feminism.

But in fact, Carmela is not a feminist at all, or has nothing to do with those radicals. She prefers that husband and wife perform their respective duties and take care of the family together.

It was only because of Tang De's reminder that she did not speak her mind truthfully.

After all, no one can live with money.

If young people think that your ideas are outdated, the sales of the "Fifty Shades of Grey" series will inevitably encounter a bottleneck, which will also affect the film.

JK Rowling of later generations is a living example. She was cyber-bullied by a large number of netizens and expelled from Harry Potter by fans because of her controversial remarks on the transgender community, such as her disagreement with transgender people being able to choose their assumed gender when using the bathroom.

Even the actors were reluctant to speak for the mother of Harry Potter.

Just as the theory goes, in reality, minority groups often have the upper hand in public opinion because they need to speak out to fight for their rights, thus creating the illusion that their voice is very loud.

Tang De was naturally on guard against this. He never publicly expressed his opinions on transgender or homosexuality, just to prevent fans from making a list to boycott his movies one day.

With the development of the Internet, the public opinion field has gradually evolved into a cesspool. People in it are inevitably filthy, so it is very important to keep oneself clean.

After figuring out the museum's art theme, Tang De drove to the digital realm.

Here, he met Sylman Ambrose, the top technical talent he had poached from Industrial Light & Magic.

He was also a backbone of the Avatar team and was indispensable. Tang De had no way of poaching him, but because of his failed investment, he owed a large debt, so under the temptation of high salary and shares, he jumped to Tang De's company.

There are many people like him. During the year of the financial crisis, Tang De poached many people.

After all, there are too few such suitable opportunities.

Therefore, the strength of the digital field is now much stronger than before, and the means of creating special effects have become more diverse.

"Tang, we have solved most of the problems with the special effects you need." Sailman Ambrose demonstrated to Tang De in front of the computer.

On the screen is a rendered 3D character with various cyber prostheses installed on his arms and head. When the picture is zoomed in, you can see the clear and realistic texture and material on the prostheses, as well as the reflection of the light source.

This effect is called real-time lighting technology in the game. Of course, this is a simplified version now.

And it can't be done in real time like in the game, it can only be called artificial lighting technology.

But it still looks very realistic. The highly detailed modeling, combined with the lighting, makes it even more realistic, and it looks just like a robotic arm in the real world.

If we compare it with the special effects of movies currently on the market, it is really a drop in the bucket. Only the unreleased "Avatar" is better.

But the investment in "Avatar" is several times that of "Lucy", so Tang De feels that the current level is enough to beat other movies of the same period.

(End of this chapter)